Andy Williams harbors hope of someday being released

A victim of taunting and bullying that bordered on "torture," the teen-ager charged in the deadly March 5 shooting rampage at Santana High School finally snapped, the boy's father said yesterday.

"The cumulative effects of all of this (bullying) -- it was just too much," Jeff Williams said in a 11/2-hour interview with The San Diego Union-Tribune, one of the first he's granted since his son's arrest in a shooting spree that left students Brian Zuckor and Randy Gordon dead and 13 other people wounded.

Williams said his 15-year-old son has been consumed with guilt and regret to the point that he can't sleep at night in Juvenile Hall. In the past few months, "all this has started to sink in," the father said.

"The taking of Randy's life, of Brian's life -- he knows that was the worst mistake he could ever do," Williams said. "He also knows he's looking at 500 years in prison, which means he may be paroled by the time he's 80 years old."

The father, a 41-year-old lab technician at San Diego Naval Medical Center, talked about his sorrow for the victims and his shock that his child could be capable of such an act. Just the day before the shooting, the teen-ager gave his father elaborate instructions for how he wanted his room arranged in a Lakeside condo the elder Williams planned to buy.

Williams said his son harbors hope of getting out of custody one day and becoming an Army helicopter pilot or probation officer -- jobs the teen-ager believes might help him atone and make a positive contribution to the world.

Williams talked about the horrific first hours after he first heard about the shooting, and at this point during the interview he began to cry.

Williams is the subject of an interview with ABC co-anchor Diane Sawyer scheduled to be broadcast at 10 p.m. today on ABC's "PrimeTime Thursday" on Channel 10.

These interviews are his first public comments since shortly after the shooting, when he read a brief statement expressing sympathy for the victims and support for his son.

Williams said he decided "it seemed like it was time for the other side to come out and give me the opportunity to express my condolences to the Gordons and the Zuckors and all the other people affected by what Andy did that day."

Asked to respond to some of the father's comments, prosecutor Kristin Anton said authorities failed to uncover any evidence that Andy Williams was the victim of a bullying campaign.

"We've talked to hundreds of people . . . and frankly there isn't evidence to support this bullying theory," she said.

Although some of the teen-ager's friends might have taunted him from time to time, "they did it in a way that they'd laugh about it and continue to associate with each other," Anton said.

As for the father's belief that his son should be tried as a juvenile rather than as an adult, Anton said state law makes clear that "if kids commit these horrible crimes, if they're acting like an adult in a criminal manner, then they're going to be punished like one."

Clark Serrato, whose son Raymond nearly died during the school shooting from a single shot inches from his heart, said, "He should come over and see my son's bullet wound, and then tell me his son should get out at 25," Serrato said.

Andy Williams has been charged as an adult.

"My primary concern is justice for the victims," Anton said. "We have two kids that are dead. We have 13 people that were shot."

During yesterday's interview, Deputy Public Defender Randy Mize provided a typed list of 18 episodes in which he said his client was the target of harassment and physical assaults.

The list includes "burned with cigarette lighter on his neck every couple of weeks," "sprayed with hair spray and then lit with a lighter," "beat with a towel that caused welts by bullies at the pool" and "slammed against a tree twice because of rumors."

"Some of the stuff basically borders on torture," Jeff Williams said yesterday.

He said he didn't realize the extent to which his son was being harassed. He also said he didn't know that his son had begun to experiment with alcohol and marijuana.

"He never came home smelling of alcohol, and his eyes were never red," Williams said. "Apparently when he spent the night at these friends' houses they would tie it on."

He described his son as his "best friend" and said the two of them enjoyed "a very good father-son relationship." In Maryland and then Twentynine Palms -- where father and son lived before moving to Santee -- Williams said he watched proudly as his son became an enthusiastic participant in sports, drama and other school activities.

Williams said he "never missed (his son's) baseball game in Brunswick (Md.). Never missed a football game."

Only when father and son moved to Santee last year -- Andy Williams' mother and half brother live in Maryland -- did he notice a slight change in his boy, who was getting teased at school about everything from his manner of dress to his "hick" accent.

Still, aside from some occasional back talk to his dad, the teen-ager never let on that anything was seriously wrong, his father said.

Williams also insists he kept a close watch on his guns and that he had never known his son to remove one of the weapons from the locked cabinet without his explicit permission.

Authorities say Andy Williams opened fire at the school with a .22-caliber handgun he took from his father's gun cabinet.

In rural Maryland, the boy would sometimes shoot tin cans or dragon flies with a pellet gun but always got his father's permission, Williams said.

In Santee, the father kept his weapons in a locked cabinet -- but made a point of letting his son know where the key was, he said. The reason, he said, was that in the event of a burglary he wanted his son to be able to turn the guns over to the burglars so they wouldn't be tempted to inflict harm on the boy.

Since his arrest, Andy Williams has spent his time reading dozens of books -- he just finished "To Kill a Mockingbird" -- and studying origami, the Japanese art of folding paper to form animals, flowers and other figures, his father said.

Williams said he wants his son to face "justice, not vengeance."

He said he'll never fully recover from the moment on March 5 when he arrived at Santana High School and was told his son was the one responsible for the carnage.

"My name is Jeff Williams," he recalls informing a group of police officers in the chaotic aftermath. "Apparently my son did this."